Socialist Organisation

The reason for organisation is that a number of people united are better able to accomplish a given end as a rule than the same people working in an isolated fashion. In fact, some ends can only be accomplished by means of organisations, and Socialism is one of them.

Mere organisation, however, is not enough. It must be of such a nature that it will meet the need to accomplish the end as soon as possible. Moreover, it must really accomplish the end, and not some pale shadow of it.

Bad organisation will often defeat the end aimed at, weak organisation will hinder its accomplishment, and only sound organisation will adequately achieve it.

The end that is aimed at determines the nature of the organisation. Organisation for Socialism is a political movement to revolutionise present social arrangements which rest on the private ownership of the means for producing and distributing the social wealth.

In recent months the idea or concept of 'Leninism' has been placed under the microscope with the revelations of the undemocratic activities of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party. In March the Socialist Standard republished its 1995 education document as The SWP: an undemocratic Leninist organisation which identifies the undemocratic nature of the 'Leninist' concept of 'democratic centralism' in the SWP. The origins of 'Leninism' lie at the beginning of the twentieth century when Lenin distorted the original message of Marx and Engels, but even in this period there were criticisms of 'Leninism' and 'Bolshevism' by such revolutionary thinkers as Rosa Luxemburg and Julius Martov.